AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Maggie moaned at the feel of his cock notching between her thighs, his lips at her neck, his tongue licking erotically at her skin. Blood pulsed hot and fast through her veins, heating her flesh, sensitizing her nerve endings, as lust began to spike the air around them.
Hunger surged through her. More than two years of aching, of needing, of suffering the restless, shadowed dissatisfaction that edged at her mind, culminated here. In Joe’s arms. His touch. His kiss. It was the drug she had never recovered from, the one very likely to destroy her.
chapter 3
the feel of her lips beneath his, her body pulled against his, was heaven and hell. Memories swamped him, and following close on its heels was a lust that tightened in his balls and sent hunger slamming through his system. This was Maggie. Redheaded, fiery, a need he had never exorcised from his heart. A hunger he couldn’t forget. No matter how hard he tried—and he had tried, for two and a half years he had tried. He was tired of denying himself.
His lips moved over her jaw, back to her lips, and he stole the words he could feel rushing past them. A denial, the cautious, intuitive part of her that had always driven him crazy. There was only one way to silence it, one way to steal beneath her defenses and make her melt in his arms.
“Maggie,” he whispered, lifting his lips until they ghosted over hers. “Let me love you…”
“You son of a bitch!”
He was unprepared for the raging fury let loose on him. A redheaded mini tornado that kicked, slapped, and threw herself at him like a force of nature intent on destruction.
“Dammit, Maggie…” He grabbed her wrists, only to let go as she kicked at his shin.
Jumping back, he stared at the aberration confronting him. Her red hair was wild, waves of fiery splendor cascading to her shoulders, her cheeks flushed, her green eyes brilliant with tears.
“I can’t believe you!” Her fists were clenched at her sides as her breasts rose and fell with the quick pace of her breathing. “‘Let me love you,’” she mimicked him. “You know about as much about that emotion as Grant did. Zero, Joe. Nada. And you can kiss my ass.”
“Give me the chance.” He narrowed his eyes on her, letting a mocking smile curl his lips. “If you had put the bitch on hold for a minute, I might have gotten around to it. And the next time you compare me to Grant, you might find that sweet ass spanked rather than kissed.”
“Lay a hand on me and I’ll charge you with assault,” she yelled back. “You had your chance to love me, Joe, and you blew it.”
“Like hell,” he snarled, sexual tension and raging anger rising inside him. “I loved you every damned chance you gave me, Maggie. Completely. Neither of us could move after we were finished.”
“You fucked me,” she corrected him brutally.
Joe flinched at the explicit wording, something dark and inexplicable rising inside him to deny it.
“And what did you do, Maggie? I hardly think it was love; you married the man you believed was my best friend six months later.”
“I didn’t know until he brought you to the wedding rehearsal.” Her gaze was filled with disgust as it raked over him. “I nearly broke the engagement then, and I would have if he hadn’t begged me not to. I knew.” Her laughter was tinged with bitterness. “God, I knew better. I should never have listened to him when he swore to me that my relationship with you didn’t matter. That he hadn’t known about it.”
The pain in her eyes made him pause. Maggie had never been much of liar, at least not before her marriage to Grant. She wore her heart on her sleeve, loved or hated with equal intensity. A person didn’t have to guess where he stood with her.
“He knew about our relationship,” he informed her, watching her closely. “He knew th
e night you walked out on me, and he knew why.”
Her lips parted for a second before closing firmly, tightening into a bitter line. There was no surprise there, though, only remembered pain. Grant’s lies couldn’t surprise her anymore, only her own stupidity at the time still had the power to hurt her.
“Yes,” she finally admitted. “He did. He knew about our relationship and he used it the entire time we were married. Too bad I didn’t know any better before the vows were spoken.”
“Why did you marry him?” That question had haunted him, had driven him to drink more nights than he could count.
“Because I thought he loved me,” she threw back at him fiercely. “And I thought I loved him. I thought he was honest, that he wanted more than the quick fuck his buddy had decided was all I was good for.”
“Say that word again and you’re going to regret it, Maggie,” he snapped.
“What? Fuck?” she sneered. “What’s wrong, Joe, does it offend you to know what a complete bastard you were?”
“I know well how damned stupid I was.” God knew it had been driven home night after lonely night for two and a half years. “But you were never just a fuck.”
“Oh, you loved me?” she asked mockingly. “Yeah, sure you did, Joe. Even while you were parading Miss Big Boobs around on your tuxedoed arm for a night out? Did you think I had forgotten that one?”
Miss Big Boobs. Fake boobs maybe, not that he had checked. The woman in question, Carolyn Delorents, had been the daughter of a suspected drug kingpin. He had been on assignment. Nothing more. An assignment he hadn’t told Maggie about.
